I don't use Reddit anymore, but I wanted to search something that I couldn't find anywhere. This is what I saw. After killing all the other apps, Reddit now is trying to force us to use their own spyware app.
I think the worst part is they entirely ignored the most painfully obvious solution of implementing a "reddit plus" or "reddit premium" or "reddit red" and just gated third party app access behind a $9.99/mo subscription. I have a hard time believing most reddit users' ad views are worth anywhere near that much per month. But instead they decided to burn a significant sum of goodwill on questionable premises and pissed off a significant number of power users.
The feeling I got from all of the communications was that /u/spez was jealous of Apollo and just wanted to kill off Apollo. Which would explain why they took such a scorched earth approach in trying to kill all third party apps
That is basically what they did. There are a decent amount of third party apps around that work. I personally use Narwhal.
The further we get from the whole third party app debacle, the more I think this was just a way to kill the most popular apps. The ones that people said made reddit worth using. The ones that got shouted out in Apple keynotes.
Yeah, there is 0 way that reddit reviews even 10% of of the content, probably even 5%, if even that. There's just no way. This is just a scare tactic to get you into their walled garden, to download their app, sign you up, and become a metric.
I'm going to guess enabling "desktop mode" in Chrome (idk if other browsers have it) would probably work as well, but would throw off the layout most likely.
You can't access the normal Reddit site behind a VPN either. The only solution is to use a private frontend like Redlib with LibRedirect, to automatically redirect all Reddit links to Redlib.
The only decent way to browse Reddit nowadays is a private frontend called Redlib. You can use the LibRedirect browser extension or the UntrackMe Android app to automatically redirect all Reddit links to Redlib. It's better for privacy, since you don't need to access Reddit directly and thus your information isn't exposed, it works without JavaScript, it doesn't have ads or trackers and works behind a VPN or Tor. It also lets you view NSFW content without any limitations.
On android, I would recommend using Stealth or Geddit to browse reddit. Stealth has a mode where it scrapes old.reddit.com (and bypasses the API), and Geddit uses the RSS feed to pull content instead of API.
Downside is neither app will let you interact, but I don't have any desire to generate content for reddit anyways.
And like, why are people surprised it's only getting worse? Of course it is, we knew long ago the removal of 3rd party app was the beginning of the master plan to monetize our communities.
I think what's even more annoying is when you actually do use the app, every community you visit, it pops up a notification that says "turn on notifications so you don't miss updates from this community!"
Don't think of it as them being unprofessional, think of it as them having a safety valve to relieve the pressure of some people wanting to leave Reddit for Lemmy or elsewhere, because of their bs.
Someday, when they're confident enough that they have customer retention locked in, that methodology of bypassing will be removed.
I have 0 doubt that they eventually shut old.reddit down, or they make it so unusable that it doesn't make a difference anymore if they did. Probably with some extensive regretful apology letter about how hard it became for the team to maintain, something about the future of Reddit moving forward and blah blah blah...
the thing is, the one and only purpose of this dialog is to increase metrics of engagement, like how many users download the app. they don't need to convert every mobile web user to an app user immediately. as long as that dialog is driving the engagement metrics apps, it is doing its work correctly. obviously at some point there will stop increasing engagement, so the middle managers will turn and try to squeeze a bit more by removing the loopholes, but it is not an urgent problem. it even might be intentional so they can squeeze a bit more later
the one that i am surprised at how bad it is is Twitter, that is still hosted at twitter.com . even going to x.com just redirects to twitter.com . i assume that there's some major engineering problem that is preventing them from switching, but still, it has been almost 10 months and the clown at chief really pushed for the rebranding
And anytime you use a browser, you'll always be nagged to continue viewing through browser or use their app. It comes up so obnoxiously and I swear it slows you down. They also make the viewing experience subpar unless you use the app.
You can use UntrackMe on Android or Privacy Redirect on iOS. Or if you are on Anndroid and use Firefox or a fork of it like Mull or Fennec, you can install LibRedirect there.
No need for safari, I use that option in chrome and firefox. I created an account just for lurking and use desktop mode and it "works", at least it stopped bothering to get the app or restricting content because I wasn't logged in
"Download our app and consume ads on it because... becaaaaauuuuuusssseeeeee, um, let's say SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN? Maybe terrorism? Just pick a reason you'd believe and get the app, okay?"
Me neither, at least I haven't logged into my account to browse reddit. Occasionally I click on a Reddit because it's the result of my web search. But I always use a private frontend called Redlib for that, LibRedirect automatically redirects all Reddit links to Redlib, it's really useful. UntrackMe does the same on Android, Privacy Redirect on iOS.
Oh no! Our poor sensitive little eyes might be offended by something we see! I need a nanny-state to go through everything I have access to so I don't get confused!
I didn't read all the comments here so someone else may have suggested this but for my android when I'm met with this I can open the browser options and choose desktop site to bypass it. Still annoying but every once in a while I need info goddamnit
They're boosting their sign up numbers by putting porn behind it. I bet it's not even that racy, they just know that humans are motivated by something potentially titillating
trying to appeal to venture capitalists and investors by hiding the sketchy porn sites would be my guess, considering they got busted by cnn for underage stuff.